New Survey Data Signals Major Strides in Maternal Care and Digital Inclusion, Alongside Pressing Child Nutrition and Overweight Metrics
MUMBAI – The State Bank of India (SBI) Economic Research Department has released its latest research report analyzing the newly unveiled National Family Health Survey-6 (NFHS-6) results
Key Highlights of the NFHS-6 Analysis:
Substantial Gains in Maternal Health & Institutional Births: Maternal healthcare access has advanced significantly
. Mothers undertaking four or more Antenatal Care (ANC) visits rose to 65.2% from 58.5% in NFHS-5 . More notably, institutional births have achieved near-universal status at 90.6% across the country . Mixed Outcomes in Child Nutrition: While child stunting under the age of five declined remarkably from 35.5% to 29.3% (representing a sharp drop to around 30 million children), improvement in underweight (31.8%) and wasted (19.0%) categories remains modest and partial
. The Dual Link of Health Expenditure: SBI's regression models established a clear negative association between a state's Medical & Health expenditure (as a % of GSDP) and child malnutrition metrics
. States like Odisha, leading with a 1.93% allocation of GSDP to health, correlate with steeper declines in detrimental indicators compared to low-allocation states (~0.50%) like Karnataka and Telangana . Emerging Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Risks: The most drastic health transition captured in the survey is the sharp increase in overweight or obese women (aged 15-49), surging to 30.7% nationally
. Urban spaces indicate an alarming obesity rate of 42.8% among women, which directly corresponds to high blood sugar levels rising to 17.8% nationwide . Similarly, 20.9% of adult Indian men suffer from high/very high blood sugar . Maturing Demographic & Social Transitions: India's Total Fertility Rate (TFR) consolidated at 2.0
. However, the urban fertility rate has plummeted to a disturbing 1.6, falling significantly below the replacement rate, with states like West Bengal (1.3) and Assam (1.2) nearing advanced economy lows . Meanwhile, child marriage (women aged 20-24 married before 18) observed a long-run decline to 20.1% . Unprecedented Financial and Digital Inclusion: Driven by the push for financial literacy and social security, 89.0% of Indian women now operate their own bank accounts
. Furthermore, 63.6% own an independent mobile phone, and 64.3% have active access to the internet .